Content created by the viewers or users, as opposed to content created by a broadcaster
We know you love it when people port software on to unlikely platforms, so thought you’d like to see this video of the old (pre-osx) Mac operating system running on an Sony PSP.
How real it is, isn’t 100% clear, but it appears to be running a PSP version of Basilisk II, an open-source Macintosh Emulator project, called, unsurprisingly, Basilisk II PSP.
(Video follows) Continue reading Basilisk II PSP: Running PSP Mac 7.5 OS: Video
We know Tech is hitting all media businesses, but how are they currently responding?
Howard Scott covered North One TV yesterday; today it’s Sony BMG; and the final piece tomorrow is Kempster, their work with European football and the conclusion.
Highlighting through italics are ours.
Duncan Bird, VP of Futures, Sony BMG
Duncan Bird is an ex-Leagas bod, just like me – so he’s got to be cool, right?
For Duncan, change in anything is good and is often the best way to learn. For Sony BMG, the music industry is in a state of constant change, and as an example, the Justin Timberlake album (got you copy yet? No? Strange!) sold in 71 different formats. That’s a big change from CD, Tape and Vinyl!
Continue reading TV, Music and Marketing: Their Current Response To Digital Media (pt 2)
We know Tech is hitting all media businesses, but how are they currently responding?
Howard Scott went along to a meeting, Talking Tech, organised by the European Sponsorship Association to investigate the current state of play – covering the world of TV, Music and entertainment marketing.
Today’s piece covers North One TV; tomorrow, Sony BMG; and the final piece, Kempster, their work with European football and the conclusion.
Highlighting through italics are ours.
ESA Talking Tech
Another day, another conference. A couple of weeks back I attended the ESA Sponsorship Seminar entitled Talking Tech. Even though the title was “Talking Tech” I didn’t let that put me off.
It was aimed at the Sponsorship industry with a slant to how digital tools (lots of reference to new media, but is it still new?) have/can/will later that side of the marketing business.
The panel of speakers for the event had some interesting people on board, and in my usual style I’ll go through each of them in turn now.
Continue reading TV, Music and Marketing: Their Current Response To Digital Media
More than a third of employees who keep personal blogs risk getting the boot from their job by posting information about their employer, workplace, or colleagues, according to new research.
In a YouGov report commissioned by human resources firm Croner, employees were asked if they were down with the whole blogging thang, and if they were, they were asked to detail what kind of information that they were sharing with the world.
Continue reading Blathering Work Bloggers Risk The Boot
It came as a surprise to me how excited I was about receiving my Moo cards today.
I’ve been meaning to get some since they first surfaced, but my upcoming trip to the Broadband World Forum in Beijing next month brought the need further into focus.
Continue reading Moo Mini-Cards Review (88%)
Next week is the second annual Takeaway Festival at the Dana Centre at the Science Museum in London.
The event organisers at the Science Museum have a natty skill of organising some great events, so we’re hoping this one will be up to their normally high standards.
It’s a three day event (9-11 May) which sounds like it could just about start a revolution. They’ll “explore how emerging technologies are transforming creative possibilities, social structures and communication networks.”
By the structure of it doesn’t sound like it will give you a chance to get bored – even if you wanted to.
Continue reading Takeaway Festival: DIY Media Next Week
If you don’t live your life in the Blogosphere or on Digg – and why should you? – you’ll have missed out on many knickers getting in a twist.
It all started off about the posting on Digg of an encryption key for HD-DVD that is intrinsic to the security of HD-DVD content.
Next major thing – many alleged that the administrators of Digg were removing posts about this key and the growing number of anti-digg comments that were littering the system.
Continue reading Digg HD-DVD Censorship Fiasco
The Internet has undergone a revolution in the past few years, and one of the major trends we’ve seen is that of social networking. I suspect that a substantial proportion of those reading this are a member of one or more social networks, and those who are not are surely aware of the phenomenon which MySpace and others represent.
Whilst I have used MySpace, Bebo and other social networks in the past, the one which I have found consistently useful (if that is the right choice of word) is Facebook. This site began in the US as a way for students at the same college to communicate with each other and organise their social lives together online, and has since come to universities everywhere and most recently, with the advent of region-based ‘networks’, to everyone. Certainly in my social circle, Facebook is gaining real traction, probably surpassing market leader MySpace as the place to join.
How do FaceBook and MySpace Differ?
In many ways the two services could not be more different. A subtle difference is the emphasis which Facebook places on keeping in touch with those who one already knows. MySpace, on the other hand, is quite keen to help you meet new people. The Facebook approach sits more nicely with the way most people like to interact with others; MySpace demands what you could call a social paradigm shift, if you are to take it seriously. Whilst that is not a criticism of MySpace (I know someone who is ostensibly head over heels at the moment with a person he met entirely over MySpace), it does mean that the barrier to Facebook adoption is considerably lower than that of its larger rival – an important fact given the relatively low overall percentage of the population using social networking sites currently. Future growth in the space will predominantly come from those outside the current 16-25 year olds that make up the majority of their users, who are more happy to be flexible with how their social lives operate. Facebook is more equipped to meet the needs of those who are not so flexible.
Customisation
Another key difference is way in which MySpace users are able to customise their profile pages, whereas Facebook users are allowed no such features. Whilst the claimed potential to achieve self expression by creating an appalling design for one’s profile page is a mystery to me, I do see the appeal of the widgets platform MySpace offers.
For the uninitiated, widgets are small boxes containing content from a third-party provider. That could be an embedded YouTube video, the contents of an RSS feed or even a dynamic app, such as livechat2im, which allows a visitor to a profile page to have an instant messaging chat with the owner directly through the page. None of this is possible with Facebook at the moment, although Mashable reported a rumour this week that Facebook is considering implementing widgets. Pete Cashmore argued that widgets is currently the key functionality MySpace has which Facebook does not, and that it would be the best way to ‘steal the social networking crown from MySpace’.
I’m not sure I entirely agree with Pete. I think it is in a better position to grow in the medium term future than MySpace is, but it is continuously under pressure to get quick growth by trying to steal users from MySpace. Building a ‘better MySpace’ probably isn’t the way forward if it is to ultimately overtake MySpace, and rumoured features such as its classified ads service seem to indicate that Facebook is aware of that. Facebook needs to be clearly different from MySpace, and adding widgets would possibly damage that.
Who will win long term?
I will end with a prediction; in five years, if Facebook doesn’t pander to the temptation to be like MySpace, it will be significantly bigger in terms of users and pageviews than the Murdoch-owned rival.
Huw Leslie is editor of UK-based Web 2.0 and software blog GizBuzz. He is a co-founder of Oratos Media and Klaxis, and his personal blog is For Crying Out Loud.
Google is bringing User Generated Content to the Google Maps, by extending it to let users add their own comments, photos and video.
Google Maps has wowed people ever since it moved to the Web from the standalone Google Earth application, letting anyone with a Web browser take a look at both the maps and satellite images of anywhere in the world.
Adding content to online maps, or geographic locations isn’t a new idea. It’s been around for ages and it’s commonly called geotagging, or less frequently Geocoding.
Google Maps has been possible for a while using a combination of Google Maps API and XML, but it wasn’t for the faint-hearted, requiring quite a lot of know-how and skill to add items. It uses an XML schema called KML, Keyhole Markup Language.
Their new version, currently available in ten counties, gets away from this by extending Google Maps to include a simple drag and drop interface.
We’ve given it a go and found it a breeze.
When people create their own MyMaps they are able to define if they are to be shared with the world – coming up in Google search results – or define if they are the remain private.
Adding placemarks is a breeze. Simply select the placemark icon and click on the map area that you want it to appear on. These can be titled and a description added, be that plain text, rich text, or HTML
There are further tools to allow lines and shapes to be draw onto the maps. Once set, these can then have their colours and attributes changed.
Adding photo and video
Photos and video can be added to the maps, as long as they’re hosted somewhere online.
Adding them requires the smallest amount of HTML skill, as they have to be added to the placemarks using HTML code. (pointers)
Once you’ve created you mapping master pieces, you can take the data from Google Maps, out via KML, to Google Earth.
Current competition
Yahoo has offered the ability to attach photographs to maps via their Flickr service for quite a while now (Bestival example) and Microsoft have also had a similar tool Via their Maps Live service.
Our Sister site, Ventnor-Blog, has been scooping the world with announcements of who and what will be appearing at the amazing, manic extended weekend that is Bestival.
Besides the now-known amazing acts of The Beastie Boys, Chemical Brothers, a whole slew of talented ladies, Primal Scream, Jah Wobble and many others will be appearing.
The latest mold-breaking announcement of today is that willing punters, will themselves be able to play on stage at this coming Bestival, if they’re willing to pick up a ukulele and learn to play it.
That’s all very lovely, but what’s the relevance for Digital-Lifestyles? Well, the innovative way that enthused Uke holders will get up to speed on the required songs is via MySpace.
The whole jolly lot is being organised by the venerable Dulwich Ukulele Club (background) through the Night of 100 Ukes’s.
On there, in the lead up to Bestival, will appear details of the songs, the lyrics that need to be learnt and the cords that need to be sweated over in pursuit of Ukulele-nirvana.
The majority of preparation through practice will be done in the privacy of Uke-ers homes, but besides the planned rehearsal at “a central London pub” in August, Who knows, they might even choose to use Skype to Live to have remote practices.
We’re going to keep an eye on this one, both in our personal pursuit of Uke-ism and to watch how this MySpace-driven mass learning works out.